The desirable appearance of food has much to do with its cosmetic eye appeal. Foods that are subjectively pleasing to the eye are generally more appetizing than those foods that are prepared in an improper or careless manner. One of the subjectively pleasing aspects of a food's appearance is its color and shaded nuances. The color of a prepared food is an especially important factor in the eye appeal of meats, including, but not limited to, poultry, beef, pork and fish. Typically, consumers prefer a darker color, ranging from a light brown in poultry products to a much darker, nearly blackened, color for certain beef products. Unfortunately, many conventional one-step cooking processes properly cook the food, but impart an unacceptable, nonappealing color. Other such one-step processes may produce food products with an acceptable color, but which are inadequately or otherwise nonideally cooked, i.e., not cooked to a safe internal product temperature.
In addition, it is difficult to attain consistent, proper color in many preprocessed foods. For example, chicken may be fully cooked at large food processing facilities. The cooked chicken is then quickly frozen and shipped to restaurants, cafeterias and the like. These restaurants retain the food in freezers until shortly before it is to be consumed. The frozen, precooked chicken parts are placed on the shelves of large warming ovens. After an appropriate time period, the chicken in the oven has been thawed and warmed to the ideal and safe temperature for consumption. Such chicken, however, lacks the light- to medium-brown color preferred by most consumers. Instead, the surface of this chicken has a beige color. As a result, the chicken does not have "eye-appeal" and is rejected on sight by a certain number of consumers. This rejection occurs even though the chicken is otherwise perfect and has an excellent flavor, texture and aroma.
Devices for the preparation of food are disclosed in many United States patents. These patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. Re. 24,296, 3,249,741, 3,479,188, 3,559,564, 3,682,643, 3,783,220, 4,051,347, 4,396,817, 4,701,585, 4,771,154, 4,943,697, 4,957,041 and 4,957,042.